Chosse the best route for high speed rail

November 29, 2009

The interests of public transportation will be well-served by the development of high-speed rail in the Great Lakes region over the next decade. It is a transportation plan for the future -- an affordable, efficient way for people to travel from one population center to another. In order for high-speed passenger trains to serve the greatest public interest possible, they should serve the most people possible. That is why we believe the choice between a northern route (Cleveland through South Bend to Chicago) and a southern route (Cleveland through Fort Wayne to Chicago) is a false choice. The high speed rail of the future should run from Cleveland through Fort Wayne and South Bend, to Chicago. It is important for the people who make this decision to realize that leaving the South Bend-Mishawaka-Elkhart metro area off the line, and running it 25 miles south through Plymouth, not only would fail to enhance those communities' transportation options, but it would undermine them. The notion of providing shuttle buses to Plymouth, and the extra hour a shuttle commute would entail, would hold little appeal. A shuttle leg for travelers from Elkhart and St. Joseph counties would negate any time savings gained by catching a fast train to Chicago. The numbers alone make the case. The southern route, favored thus far by the Indiana Department of Transportation, would serve a population of 1.28 million people, as would the northern route that InDOT has not favored. A hybrid of the two routes, that included both Fort Wayne and the greater South Bend metro area, would serve 1.68 million people. Numbers, persuasive though they are, don't tell the whole story. A rail line tying Fort Wayne and South Bend to Chicago and Cleveland also would serve a large number of people whose business interests would draw them to those cities. The presence of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, with the South Bend-Chicago travel it generates, also would be taken into account. None of the arguments against including the South Bend area makes a lot of sense -- especially that one that says so many trains already run through the South Bend area. Most of them carry freight. The fact that Amtrak and the South Shore stop in South Bend only proves that there is need and demand for passenger service. But neither of those options addresses the transportation demand that high-speed rail is aimed at. Clearly, their presence is an argument for, not against, putting South Bend on the line. They are needed, but they don't meet the whole need. The best argument of all? Embracing the largest potential ridership possible is the way to make the high-speed endeavor successful. Those train cars should be full, after all. With the right planning, they will be. There is a reason that public officials in both South Bend and Fort Wayne light up at the possibility of the two cities being linked by an efficient travel option. Both would benefit economically. It would be shortsighted to err on the side of making the distance just a bit shorter by slighting one city or the other. High-speed rail should run through all the major population centers of northern Indiana.